NOTE TO PRODUCERS: You should really use entertainers, not dull, flat actors, as your hosts. James Franco and Anne Hathaway were like two stiff presenters at a high school graduation. It’s no accident that the audience rose for a standing ovation when Billy Crystal appeared. They were relieved. It was like seeing a water in the desert. He could even crack a joke. And the holographic Bob Hope was even better. Oh, for another era when Hollywood was Hollywood and had a little glamor.
What kind of an evening was it? There wasn’t even any good phony leftist politics (well, a little). The whole event even made you yearn for Marlon Brando sending an Indian to collect his prize, dopey as that was. At least it had some pizazz.
Ironically, this snore fest came in the midst of a pretty good year for movies. There were at least three excellent films: The King’s Speech, The Social Network and Toy Story 3. Although I cast my Academy ballot for The KS, good as that is, I should really have voted for Toy Story 3. Taken as a trilogy, The Toy Story movies are for the ages, masterpieces of a new form of animation. Pixar is the ONLY move studio functioning the way the studios once functioned in the glory days, producing film after excellent film with their unique stamp on them. Is it because they are out of Hollywood? Because of Steve Jobs (or John Lasseter)? Who knows, but they’re doing it.
Best acceptance speeches: David Seidler, KS writer, and Toby Hooper, KS director, who acknowledged his mother for giving him idea to do film.
Lionel Chetwynd and I will have more on Poliwood. We’ll try not to be boring.
No wonder why Jack Nicholson doesn’t bother to show up any more.
What? You don’t like Anne Hathaway’s constant “OMG! Everyone here’s FAMOUS! And I’m in the room with them! Wait! I’m ONE OF THEM! We’re all, like, legends an’ stuff!”
The continuous reminders that “the people in this room are a very special breed of elite, wonderful living legends” who get paid millions of dollars for a few months of work and then need a statuette when it’s all done… I don’t know how much I can take of it.
I wonder if part of the reason Pixar does so well it that they are producing animation, which means the actual actors face is never on the screen. None of the bunk about how hard he/she worked for the art, no garbage about how they had to shoot that scene 20 times to get the facial expression right. No casting of people who, quite frankly, are only getting around in Hollywood because they are considered physically attractive, with no other discernible skill. Now I’m not necessarily talking about Megan Fox and those like her, it just seems that way. Although I do notice she hasn’t been invited to do any Pixar projects…